FASCIOLA HEPATICA 155 



frequently met with out of the water than in it. It occurs in 

 elevated spots as well as in low-lying districts. Moquin-Tandon 

 found it at 4,000 feet in the Pyrenees. In the allied species, 

 L. peregra, the fluke will develop up to a certain stage, but never 

 completes all its varied phases. 



In South America the host is probably Limnceus viator, Orb., 

 and in North America, L. humilis, Say. F. V. T.] 



In human beings as well as in some of the mammals quoted 

 above, the liver fluke is only a casual parasite, and hitherto only 

 twenty-three cases have been observed in man l ; the infection was 

 mostly a mild one and there were no disturbances, or only very 

 trifling ones ; a few isolated cases were only discovered post 

 mortem. Occasionally, however, even when the infection was 

 inconsiderable, severe symptoms were set up, which in isolated 

 cases led to fatal issue. The symptoms observed (enlargement 

 and painfulness of the liver, icterus) certainly only indicated a 

 disease of the liver. 



As the liver fluke feeds on blood it is possible that it also 

 reaches the circulatory system, particularly when young, and cases 

 have been known in which it has been carried into organs far 

 from its original situation by the blood. Such cases also have 

 been repeatedly observed in man ; probably the parasite described 

 by Treutler, 1793, as a Hexathyridium venarum> which protruded 

 from the ruptured vena tibialis antica of a man, was a young 

 liver fluke. A few adult specimens were found by Duval in the 

 portal vein and other blood-vessels at an operation or post mortem 

 at Rennes (1842) on a man, aged 49, and a similar statement is 

 reported by Vital from Constantine (1874). Giesker, in 1850, 

 found two hepatic flukes in a swelling on the sole of the foot of 

 a woman. Penn Harris states that he observed six specimens in 

 Liverpool which were present in a spontaneously burst abscess of 

 the occiput of a two-months-old infant. Another case which, like 

 the previous one, is reported by Lankester, 2 relates to a sailor 

 who suffered from an abscess behind the ear, and from which a 

 liver fluke was expelled. Finally, Dionis de Carrieres 8 reports the 



1 Casuistic of Davaine (Traite des entoz., 1877, 2nd edit., p. 253) ; R. Blanchard 

 (Trait?, de Zool. med., 1889, i., p. 589), and R. Leuckart (Die menschl. Paras., 2nd edit., 

 vol. ii., p. 316), which works also mention the literature ; also in Huber's Bibliogr. 

 d. klin. Helm. (Miinchen, 1895). Case 23 is quoted by Malherbe (Progr. med., 1898, 

 vii., No. 4). 



'-' In the English translation of Kuchenmeister's work on Parasitology (London, 

 1857). The specimen is preserved in the Hunterian Museum, London, and is a pubes- 

 cent liver-fluke, measuring 18 mm. in length and 7 mm. in breadth. 



3 Communicated by Davaine (I.e.). 



